In August 2000, I bought a simple clamshell Samsung 8500. In May 2003 I declared it "my longest lasting piece of daily-use electronics". By October 2003 I had used it for 27113 minutes. That is 18 days, 19 hours and 53 minutes.

Sometime in 2004, I upgraded to the next generation (so, still 3 generations old) of the Samsung model (A400). This was not because the 8500 stopped working, but because of the mockery I would receive upon taking it out. Ok, so you could see the circuit board. And yes, some of the keys had worn out. It still sent and received and the display worked.

In March 2005 I casually dropped my phone, and it proved less worthy than my 8500. It still sent and received, but the display was in a different room. So I upgraded to a Blackberry 7100t. I liked it. Instant email, easy text messaging, always available web access. Like always-on, high-speed internet to an older generation, these features seem superfluous until you live with them. It was far more expensive, and scratched easier, but it became my life.

Tessa got a 7100t, too, when she returned from Honduras, and as anyone has seen when we're apart, the Blackberry PIN system is The Anchor of our relationship.

October 2005, it did not survive the washing machine. I had insurance, so a week later I had a new one.

When I returned from the Caymans, my 7100t was malfunctioning in an evil way. It still sent and received, and the display worked. But the top row of keys did not. The 7100t keypad is arranged like a QWERTY keyboard, so this meant that I had lost these keys: "QWERTYUIOP!123.". In addition to losing some key shortcuts I use constantly ("r" for Reply, "3" for page up, "1" for top of list), I lost the ability to write almost anything. Try typing something intelligible without those keys and symbols. I could type "n0" but only "ack" as an affirmative. (See above)

After reformatting it to see if that would cure it, yesterday they agreed to send me a new one. It arrived today. Woo!